From school to fitting work

Abstract

Although optimal labour market allocation of school leavers benefits individuals, employers and societies, a substantial part of European school leavers do not find a job that matches their field or level of education. This paper explores the extent to which horizontal and vertical education-to-job matches of European school leavers from secondary education is associated with the level of stratification, standardization, and the level of vocational orientation and institutional linkages of education systems. We combine notions of signalling theory, human capital theory and job matching theory to formulate hypotheses about how education systems affect horizontal and vertical education-to-job matches. We use micro-data on 30,805 school leavers in 20 European countries from the 2009 Ad Hoc Module of the European Labour Force Survey and data on system characteristics. Using multi-level logistic regression, we show that the level of stratification of secondary education is associated with better vertical job matches. We also find that the positive relation between being vocationally trained and education-to-job matches is stronger in systems with stronger institutional linkages. The positive relation between being vocationally trained and vertical job matches is less strong in more vocational oriented systems. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

What makes education positional? Institutions, overeducation and the competition for jobs

“…Indeed, it is common practice among stratification scholars to only focus on men in the analyses (e.g. Levels et al 2014b). More surprising is the fact that the association between returns to education and our macro variable of corporatism is stronger for males.…”

“…Breen 2005; Bol and Van de Werfhorst 2013), we believe that progress can be made by studying academically and vocationally trained employees separately (e.g Levels et al 2014b),. and focusing on the way institutions may shelter these groups from positional competition.…”

Working it out

“…A study found a lower incidence of horizontal mismatch among vocationally-trained individuals(Levels, van der Velden and Di Stasio, 2014).…”

Secondary Education Systems and the General Skills of Less- and Intermediate-educated Adults

“…Our analysis can thus enhance our understanding of labor market inequalities by formal educational attainment. Many studies show that external differentiation exacerbates the labor market disadvantage of less-educated workers (Andersen and van de Werfhorst 2010; Gesthuizen, Solga, and Künster 2011; Levels, van der Velden, and Di Stasio 2014; Solga 2002, 2008; van de Werfhorst 2011). Scholars attribute this to a positive effect of external differentiation on skills differentials between less- and intermediate-educated individuals (e.g., Andersen and van de Werfhorst 2010), but this explanation has not been tested empirically.…”